Justia U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs were United States citizens injured in a 1997 terrorist attack in Jerusalem that Hamas orchestrated. Plaintiffs sued the Islamic Republic of Iran, alleging that Iran had provided material support to Hamas and was therefore liable for the attack. Plaintiffs obtained a default judgment against Iran in 2003. Seeking to collect on that judgment, Plaintiffs moved to attach, by trustee process action in the District of Massachusetts, certain antiquities they claimed were the property of Iran but that were in the possession of Defendants, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) and Harvard University. The district court granted Defendants' motions to dissolve the attachments, concluding that Defendants could invoke the objects' immunity from attachment under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), and that although the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) provided a potential way around that immunity, Plaintiffs had failed to meet their burden of proving that the antiquities were attachable under that statute. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed but on narrower grounds, holding that TRIA in this case did not nullify the antiquities' immunity from execution under the FSIA. View "Rubin v. Harvard Univ." on Justia Law

A Massachusetts corporation and its principals sued their quondam accountant and his firm (collectively, Defendants), alleging that Defendants negligently advised them to file amended corporate and personal tax returns that had the effect of substantially increasing the principals' liability and destabilizing the company. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants but rejected their request for attorneys' fees. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in (1) concluding that a three-year statute of limitations applied to bar the maintenance of Plaintiffs' tort and contract claims; (2) dismissing Plaintiffs' unfair trade practices claim; and (3) denying Defendants' request for attorneys' fees. View "RTR Techs., Inc. v. Helming" on Justia Law

In 1989, Appellant was tried and convicted of murder in a Massachusetts state court. After serving fourteen years of his sentence, Appellant moved for a new trial on the ground that exculpatory evidence had been withheld by several Boston police officers involved in his prosecution, including Timothy Callahan, a police detective. Appellant's motion was granted and he was released from prison in 2003. After his release, Appellant filed a civil action in federal district court against Callahan, a Boston police commissioner, two police officers, and the City of Boston, alleging that his constitutional due process rights were violated by the withholding of material exculpatory evidence during his criminal trial. After a jury deadlocked on the issue of whether Callahan's failure to disclose evidence caused Appellant's conviction, a retrial was held. The retrial jury determined in 2009 that Callahan had withheld evidence and determined that his actions caused Appellant's conviction. Appellant was awarded damages of $14 million. The First Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case to the district court for a new trial, holding that Callahan was entitled to a new trial because the district court judge erred in instructing the retrial jury on causation. View "Drumgold v. Callahan" on Justia Law

Defendant was an attorney who litigated a case against the nations believed to be behind a 1972 terrorist attack on Puerto Ricans at an Israeli airport. Defendant and the American Center for Civil Justice (the Center) originally had an agreement on how to handle the litigation. However, Defendant misrepresented to clients that the Center had paid him for his work and convinced clients to revoke the Center's attorney's power of attorney. Thereafter, the Center filed suit against Defendant. In the meantime, Plaintiffs, the heirs of two individuals killed in the terrorist attack who signed retainer agreements with Defendant, filed this action against Defendant, alleging that the retainer agreements were void because Defendant secured their consent by deceit. After a jury trial, judgment was entered against Defendant. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction; (2) the non-testifying heirs proved deceit without testifying about their reliance on Defendant's misrepresentations; and (3) the district court did not err in its instructions to the jury. View "Estate of Berganzo-Colon v. Ambush" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Nancy Shay and the daughter of Defendant Barbara Walters attended boarding school together in the early 1980s. The two of them were suspended in 1983, and Plaintiff was subsequently expelled. In 2008, Walters published a memoir entitled "Audition" that included a reference to a friend of her daughter's named "Nancy" "whom the school kicked out midterm for bad behavior." Plaintiff sued Walters for money damages, alleging Walters tortiously interfered with Plaintiff's contract with the school by inducing the school to expel her, alleging the statements in Audition about her were defamatory, and asserting a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings, concluding that the tortious interference claim was time-barred and that the remaining counts failed as a matter of law. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Defendant was entitled to judgment on the pleadings. View "Shay v. Walters" on Justia Law

In this appeal, Greater Omaha Packing Company (GOPAC) asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate a jury's unanimous finding that GOPAC supplied Fairbank Reconstruction Corporation with E. coli-tainted beef, which Fairbank then packaged and shipped to two supermarkets in Maine, resulting in two women who bought meat there becoming seriously ill. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that there was no basis upon which to upset the jury's verdict, as (1) the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to conclude that GOPAC's meat was contaminated and that such meat was included in the packages the two women purchased; and (2) the trial court did not err in admitting a video deposition of GOPAC's former expert witness. View "Fairbank Reconstruction v. Greater Omaha Packing Co." on Justia Law

The parties in this case were Plaintiff, Madeleine Candelario del Moral, and Defendant, UBS Financial Services, Inc. of Puerto Rico (UBSPR). The lead issue argued here arose from a Puerto Rico judge's verbal order in a divorce contest between Plaintiff and her ex-husband, David Efron. The order vacated a multi-million dollar attachment Plaintiff obtained against Efron's UBSPR accounts. A courtroom clerk later wrote that vacating order up in a document called "minutes," which never got signed by a judge or properly noticed to Plaintiff and Efron. Claiming that the minutes were facially defective, Plaintiff insisted that UBSPR was negligent in letting Efron withdraw millions from certain accounts. The circuit court agreed and granted Plaintiff's motion as to liability. Acting own his own initiative, the circuit court judge (Judge) granted Plaintiff summary judgment on her damages claim too, even though she had expressly limited her motion to the threshold liability issue. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the summary judgment for Plaintiff because there were genuine issues of material fact precluding summary judgment. Remanded for trial. View "Candelario-Del-Moral v. UBS Fin. Servs., Inc. of P.R." on Justia Law

Plaintiff was severely injured in a workplace accident and sued Trail King, the custom manufacturer of the trailer involved in the accident. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a jury's finding that Defendant had not been negligent nor in breach of any warranty. In the trial court in that diversity case, Plaintiffs belatedly attempted to amend their complaint to add another claim, one under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A for unfair and deceptive trade practices. The trial judge denied the motion, finding the effort to amend untimely. Plaintiffs did not appeal this denial in their earlier appeal. This case concerned whether Plaintiffs may now maintain an independent suit for the ch. 93A claims against Trail King. The district court dismissed the claims with prejudice, finding that the doctrine of claim preclusion applied. Plaintiffs appealed, arguing that ch. 93A, 9(8) provides an exception to the normal rules of res judicata. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that under the facts of this case, Plaintiffs may not now bring this ch. 93A claim because of the failure to appeal from the denial of the motion to amend. View "Hatch v. Trail King Indus., Inc." on Justia Law

Mark and Carol Menard appealed from a district court order dismissing their complaint for failure to state a claim and denying their motion to amend the complaint. Mark Menard (Menard) was permanently injured while crossing through a railroad freight yard. The district court ruled that his complaint against CSX Transportation, Inc. for recklessness and negligence failed to assert sufficient facts to overcome his status as a "trespasser" and thereby state a claim under Massachusetts law. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's judgment and remanded to allow Menard to explain to the district judge what basis he had to believe that narrow discovery was warranted for his peril-and-negligence allegation, which would prove an exception to the trespasser rule. View "Menard v. CSX Transp., Inc." on Justia Law

Employee was terminated from his job at a Walgreens store in Puerto Rico after a two-week absence from his job due to a medical condition. Following his termination, Employee and his wife (Wife) sued Walgreens, alleging that Employee was fired in retaliation for conduct protected by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), that his termination was wrongful under Puerto Rico law, and that the loss of Employee's job caused Wife to suffer compensable emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment for Walgreens on Wife's claim and the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the other Puerto Rico law claim. The FMLA claim went to trial, and a jury found in Employee's favor, awarding compensatory damages. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the district court in all respects, save its rejection of Wife's Puerto Rico law claim. Because the claim presented an important and unresolved issue of Puerto Rico law that the Court declined to address in the first instance, the Court certified the question to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and reserved judgment on this particular issue pending its response. View "Pagan-Colon v. Walgreens of San Patricio, Inc." on Justia Law